"...If you or a loved one suffered serious injury or death," explained the commercial.My brain immediately blocked out just which lawfirm it was, and what medicines they were pitching for Class Action Ambulance Chasing Fun, to dwell on that last bit.
In fact, my Internal English Teacher wrote the sentence on my mental chalkboard.
"If you or a loved one suffered serious injury or death."
"If you..." (erase, erase, erase) "...suffered death..."
Yep. That was it. That's the kicker!
It brought to mind rather Beetlejuician visions, where all these Recently Deceased folks are sitting in an Otherworld reception area for the offices of Dedham, Digman and Moribund waiting to collect on their death through no fault of their own in some grand post-mortum legal loophole.
"Hey, buddy-- You die due to side effects including spontaneous head implosion, bleeding from the eyes and uncontrolled samba?" one client asks the other conversationally, as he peers over a dusty, dog-eared copy of Morta Slewhart's Afterdeath Living magazine.
"Yep. But I hear Dedham, Digman and Moribund are the best in the industry. They'll get us what's coming to us. Of course, it's their 75% cut of the damages award that really kills me," says the other.
It almost makes me wish I recalled the lawfirm running the ad. Can you see it now?
"Hi, yes, I'm calling because I saw your ad? I recently suffered death while taking the drug Ixplasm, and I was wondering what you could do to help."
How much do you want to bet, they'd take down the caller's contact information without batting an eye? Name, address, doctor's name...
"And when exactly did you die, ma'am?"
"Last week. I would have contacted you sooner, but up until yesterday I was fighting sandworms. You lose your sense of time when fighting sandworms, you know."
"We hear that all the time. Now-- next of kin? Please spell the names, last name first."
Okay, I made up that last bit. ("No, really?" No-- honest. I did.) But I still think you could get pretty far into the client qualification process before they noticed that pesky little Dead Man Calling problem.
Which now has me wondering about cell phone coverage. I mean, the range for, say, Yerizin Wireless to even connect the call, well, it's got to be a lot better service than the rest of us are getting.
